Culling RPTs

I'm not sure why staff have to kill during RPTs to make them fun and I'm not sure why that murder has to be a PC. To me and my PC killing off an NPC (that I care about) is just as effective as offing a PC and unless the dying PC player has a love of dying (some do, not kidding or being sarcastic, see RGS posts) than it also provides a better experience for all players who participated.

So the statement that staff can OOCly be like we are 100% going to kill some bitches in this RPT to make it serious and fun for the participants can be accomplished with out the need to arbitrarily kill players as a way to inform other players the gravity of the situation they are in. That isn't to say that RPTs just killing someone because they're stupid or incredibly unlucky isn't okay. I believe that is an aspect, but I also believe that staff should try and minimize that. Why?

Players already kill each other or die to NPCs at a pretty prodigious rate. You could be OOCly knowledgable enough to survive barring bad luck but bad luck happens a lot. Seriously there is a reason that longer lived PCs basically start ICly going, I'm not going to remember this guys name until 3-4 IG months later because odds are he's going to die. People die in ARM a lot. You don't need to artifically boost it when you have vnpc/npc victims that can be given emotional investment and then killed off as needed.

The question is more focused on if you find it acceptable or appropriate to have an RPT being done with the specific goal of reducing a group's/area's population. The existence of other reasons they write into the RPT for that clan or other clans isn't important to the question. I also need to stress again I used the word "staff" because this question is not specific to Armageddon, despite the interpretations of recent events there leading to the question being asked.

If it helps you answer the question, let's treat it as a what-if for a MUD we're planning to make.

BitterGunslingerMUD Alpha is on the horizon and we're trying to decide how we're going to handle our playerbase. Someone mentions there's always a risk one clan may eat the whole player base if we don't cap it. So we make a policy that you can't join a clan you had a previous character in within one month of that character's death. Then someone points out that if the clan leaders are good enough, they can probably keep most of their hapless noobs alive for a while.

So then we wind up talking about if we'd ever design a non-optional quest that is intended to wipe out most of the clan, knowing our policy would force all of the slain to try something new. You're asked if you think that is appropriate. What would you answer?

I posted a clarifying post while you were typing RGS.

EDIT - Double clarification. I am fine with PCs dying. I want to avoid them dying because staff made mistakes in balancing difficulty or combat code. I believe that trips into the Grey where we know kryl swarm and the waves get bigger and bigger overtime should be able to kill people. Especially if they stay forever and don't pull back at any point. I believe that if you have an RPT in the silt sea that if you want to have a silt horror bump the raft and knock someone off it, have that someone be an NPC, unless a PC is intentionally emoting being in a situation that would make them open to being a red-shirt death due to a silt horror emote.

So!

Go into the Grey where Kryl are with the intent of fighting them or exploring an area you know/don't know might be dangerous? Kill em if they should die due to the IC reality of their situation.


Go to the silt sea on a skimmer where a silt horror is echoed bumping the skimmer. Have an NPC wilhelm scream and fall off the skimmer to die in the silt, not a PC. Have the PCs die when the silt horror gets onto the skimmer and eats all of them.